 It's just so good. It's so good. It's so good. That's history. Sometimes men just annoy me. That was like major self-care. I would not have finished it. I'm so proud of myself. Power bitch moves. Let's go. Okay, so hi. Calm down. Calm down. I'm gonna try and complete the month-long version of Bookopoly in 48 hours. Don't read anything. If you don't read it, it can't harm you. If you don't know Bookopoly is a read-a-thon run by Becca. I'm sure you all do know where it's essentially this monopoly board that she has created and it all has different prompts on it. Becca, for some reason, asked me to host one of the Saturday 24-hour read-a-thons. So I'm doing that on Saturday. It's Thursday night right now. We're starting the read-along technically at midnight but I won't be awake. So like tomorrow morning. The great thing about Bookopoly is that you can do as many roles as you want. You just have to roll again and get an extra book if you roll a double. I'm gonna roll three. I've got a really fun 24-hour read-a-thon plan for Saturday. It's gonna be murder mystery themed. I've been planning all this stuff out and I'm so excited. Let's go roll, shall we? I'm so nervous. I'm so nervous. It's gonna be fine. Here's my little board. I'm shaking the table. Oh, this bitch is shaking the table. Not a good thing. This bitch is shaking the table. I don't have dice so I've just gotten up a dice roller. I'm so nervous. Okay, so for our first role we got Friend Pick and I'm gonna FaceTime Molly from Mind of Molly and she is going to pick me a book. Okay, I'm so nervous I am. You have two, three. Okay, okay, that's good. That was one. If it fit one of the prompts, I was gonna pick it myself for this. So I'm so happy. Molly picked The Chalkman by CJ Tudor, which is one that she very kindly bought for me. I feel like it's perfect read-a-thon like as a thriller. It's just over 300 pages. Thrillers are great things, great things for short read-a-thons. So I'm so happy she picked it. I'm so happy she picked it. This is role two out of three. Okay, I really scratched my head and I wonder where's God when you need him. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. Okay, Own Voices. So for this I landed on Own Voices and I have gone with The T-Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill. This is a graphic novel which is perfect for a read-a-thon. I wasn't sure if this is Own Voices and I've looked on multiple book blogs and it's tagged as Own Voices like multiple times so I believe it is. I think it is Own Voices for its LGBTQ plus rep. I know this also has disability rep in it and I really love the illustration style in this. So I had to get a graphic novel in especially because we've now gone up to four books. Yeah, I feel like this is one that I'll be able to knock out pretty easy. I'm very happy I've been able to squeeze a graphic novel in. Four, one, two, three, four, first in a series. Next we got First in a Series and when I was actually looking at my TBR I don't actually have that many first books in series on there. I have gone with The Raven Boys by Maggie Stevewater. I've been meaning to read this for so long. It's like a booktube YA staple and your girl still hasn't read it and this isn't too long. It's like just over 400 pages which is not ideal you know. Ideally it would be a little bit shorter but I can live with it and it's YA so hopefully it'll be a quick read. Fingers crossed we're hoping. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. POC rep. And then for the prompt of POC rep I have chosen Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown. I know this is magical realism about a girl who believes she's a wizard or is a wizard. I'm going to be reading this as an audiobook because I think audiobooks are the key to success in this kind of thing. Because when I'm doing my makeup, when I'm cooking, these are all things I'm going to be doing. I still need to read. I don't feel like this TBR is ideal because it's more books than I wanted. Okay I'll see you in the morning. So it is Friday morning so the 48 hour readathon has begun. I've only read 30 pages of The Chalk Man this morning whilst I was like still in bed and this started off like the first page the prologue was like oh shit. A girl's body has been found and it's like describing her being dead in the woods and then someone comes along and takes her head because she's been like cut up into different parts and they take her head and we don't know who it is and then we go back in time to kind of figure out what's going on. For what I remember The Chalk Man is like a serial killer. The kids before he started killing had been like drawing Chalk Man all over town or something like that and so then you had that like really strong crazy opening and then this really shocking thing happened 20 pages in so it's been really high tension. I'm scared. Thrillers are usually start low and build whereas there's two kind of really shocking horrifying things have happened already so I'm very intrigued to read more. I'm going to focus on this now. I've also while I've been getting ready I've listened to 13% of Black Girl Unlimited which I'm really happy with like that's great progress for nine in the morning. Oh it's 10. The girl on it is called Echo and it is but the author's name is Echo so I think it's kind of heavily autobiographical and I love this. I'm loving it so it's very magical realism. Her mother is a wizard and Echo has just learned that she's going to be a wizard too but the way that just like language is used is so surreal. The way that everything is spoken about is so surreal. It's already dealing with very heavy topics like drug addiction and sexual abuse and stuff like that. I mean at the moment the character is very young and it's really capturing that kind of like childhood wonder at the world but even with those darker elements and it's just really really good. The author is narrating it and like I don't often give audiobooks five stars but like right now it feels like it could be a five star. The album's amazing song to song I can't stress it enough. She could release every song off here in a career single. And I'm going to try and read to page 150-ish of The Chalkman just to make like a really good dent in it. I think I'm going to watch some of my friends read with me which I always find really helpful to like get me reading. Okay so it's now three o'clock in the afternoon. I've only listened to like one more chapter of Black Garden Limited but I have got to page 200 of The Chalkman. I am enjoying it. It's a very very fast paced thriller. Something that this book does really well. It alternates in chapters between 1986 and 2016. So the past and the present. At the end of each chapter there is something that makes you want to read in that time period again but obviously you've got to read a whole chapter in the other time period to then go and find out what the next part of the conversation is or what's being talked about and so that really keeps you wanting to read. Like I was going to check in about like three chapters ago but stuff just kept making me want to read on and make me want to find out what was going on. No I don't think you understand. I'm up for that. But I just kind of think I don't like I prefer female protagonists to thrillers. I just sometimes men just annoy me. The narrator is kind of annoying. I think I know where the story is going. Like I think I know who the baddie is and I don't um it's just pissing me off. Like I just don't want it. I mean I could be completely wrong but if it goes the way I think it's gonna go I just think that's helpful. I need to go now and do some planning for tomorrow. I need to actually plan what I'm doing. Good evening. Good evening. It's much later. I spent about two hours just planning out the last few things for tomorrow. Or is it still tomorrow? Yeah tomorrow the readathon that is about to start and like figuring out who the murderer is. I don't know why I'm pointing my reading light at you. Anyway. And then I finished The Chalk Man and I have mixed feelings about it. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a very easy, quick, fast-paced read. I just found out it was a debut. This was CJ Tuj's first book and I think it does not read as a debut. It feels really established and authoritative in terms of the voice. However part of what I thought would happen did happen. Sometimes with these things I don't know whether you're supposed to know from the beginning like I did or if I'm actually the mind of a mastermind. See I'm telling you I have the mind of a mastermind. What's that? I don't know. Or if you're not. You know whenever I figure something out I'm like well surely that was supposed to be obvious then because I don't often figure stuff out but I didn't know I made it piss me off. It wasn't the big reveal part it was at the end. It was like on the last two pages and I was like oh come on. Oh come on. Part of the ending the big reveal that I didn't predict it just felt a bit shoehorned in like it didn't really make sense. I just was not a fan. I was just sitting there kind of going like I feel like it was obvious and yet so unnecessary at the same time. It reminded me of the last by Hannah Jameson in the sense that the last like is way better at the beginning than it's the end. The ending is weird as fuck. This like isn't five stars at the beginning and the way the last was it probably is like four stars and the ending wasn't as weird but it's still the ending wasn't as good as the start which usually sort of is I find are the other way around and I'm thinking to myself I enjoyed the last more. So then I'm thinking I can't give this four stars which is what I gave the last. So I think it's like a 3.5 so it is now quarter to 11 so I've got an hour and a quarter until the readathon starts. I'm gonna listen to some more of Black Gone Limited for the next hour and a quarter. I'm now about 35% of the way through and still loving it like still fully obsessed and then for the hour whilst I do the sprint I'm gonna make a start on the Raven Boys morning. I thought I'd come at you this morning from my kitchen. Anyone like the panda? Anyone want any coca-pops? I didn't actually really need the Raven Boys last night which I'm a bit worried about not gonna lie but the sprints have been really fun. I just finished the first challenge and in an hour I have got Instagram live. Thought I would check in with you and let you know that I am now 70% of the way through Black Gone Limited and it is incredible. It is heartbreaking. It's magical. It's fantastical. Heavy trigger warnings for rape and sexual assault and drug use. It's just so good. It's so good. It's so good. Ah that's history. We are following Echo throughout her life so like it starts when she's like five. Right now I went up to I think around the end of high school so we've already followed her throughout a lot of her life. Something which I think is really really interesting is that in a chapter not all the time but there's been like a few chapters like this we'll be focusing on two separate scenes and she'll flick between the two but like the break will be in the middle of a sentence so like you'll get to the middle of a sentence for one scene and then the next scene will start and then we'll go back to the other scene. That kind of disjointedness especially because I'm listening to the audiobook I can't see it coming on the page. It's really interesting because sometimes you're like oh shit it's something wrong with the audiobook but then you realise that it's just the style that the book is being told in and I've never read something like that where it flicks between these scenes back and forth but like stopping in the middle of a narrative in the middle of a piece of action or dialogue or whatever is really really cool. I'm loving it. I feel like it's going to be heartbreaking. It already has been heartbreaking. I'm a bit worried about trying to read the whole of The Raven Boys today. I'm not going to lie because it is a bit longer but I'm hoping because it's YA it's going to read really really fast so we shall see. So I am 50 pages into The Raven Boys and I'm really enjoying it but today's stressful day calls for McDonald's breakfast so I'm having this and then I think I'm going to switch to reading The T-Dragon Society for a bit next. I got sat and I read The T-Dragon Society by Katie O'Neill. These are T-Dragons. These are little kind of animals. You can brew tea from their leaves or the flowers that they grow that has magical properties and it can unlock memories that they've had and it's just so magical and whimsical and lovely and soft. There is LGBTQ plus rep in this. There's disabled rep. There's I would say mental health rep as well. I can't wait to get my hands on the second in this series. It made me just feel so happy reading it. It's today a good day. Today's a great day. It's a blessed day. It's the kind of thing I want to read again straight away. It's got the most beautiful art star I've ever seen in a graphic novel and I really loved the characters. I particularly love there's like this elderly gay couple and I'd say they were my favorites. Like they're just so cool and loving and just amazing. So I would really, really recommend this if you're looking for some quick reads, if you're looking for some graphic novels. Up there with Heart Stopper is one of my favorite graphic novels and then whilst I was doing my second challenge, which was The Skaven Jahan, I also just finished Black Girl Unlimited and I think I'm going to give this five stars as well. There is many, many sugar warnings for this. Rape, sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, poverty, trauma, death of a parent, a hit and run. There's a lot of really traumatic topics. Echo Brown manages to explore this trauma in such a magical way and it is just one of the most kind of powerful heart wrenching. A book that just grabs you. A book that completely just grabs you and shakes you by the shoulders. It's a really wonderful account of growing up black and poor in America and I just love the idea of wizards in this book and these women being wizards and I love how women came together as a community. I loved it. So I've given two books five stars just out of the blue. Crazy. I went two months without any five star book and I've read two in one day. Like this is absolutely incredible. So all I have left to read is The Raven Boys by Maggie Stevewater. I've made the executive decision to stop reading The Raven Boys and instead to pick up Silver in the Wood. I worked it out and I was only just going to finish this if I read a page per minute for like almost the entire thing and it's just not realistic. It's just not realistic for me. It's not realistic. It's just not realistic. And I just felt like I was not savoring it. It's a book I've wanted to read for so long and I just felt like I was rushing it and not taking it in at all. So I want to save it for a time that I will really really enjoy it. So instead I'm going to be reading Silver in the Wood which is very short and still fits for the prompt of read the first in the series. This is the first in a duology I believe. I think the second one has just come out. The YouTube live is about to start. It's much later in the evening. Firstly I just want to say to myself I am so thankful I stopped reading The Raven Boys. Honestly that was like major self-care. I would not have finished it. I'm so proud of myself. Power bitch moves. Let's go. But I did finish Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh. Firstly it's a male male romance which I had no idea and I loved that aspect of it. I loved this kind of like woodland fantasy magical mystical story with a male male romance. There is a kind of man kind of woodland creature called Tobias. He is able to understand the woods and like control them in some sense and there is like these woodish creatures that he is friends with and then this man moves into the kind of house that owns the land that the wood is on. Stuff from Tobias's past is kind of dug up and they have to deal with the magic of the woods. That's all I'm going to say. I really really like this. I'm going to give it four stars. The atmosphere, the the vibe, the kind of nature of the story that the author was able to build up in such a short amount of time like it's tiny was brilliant. I really really loved that aspect of it. It was magical. It was like truly magical and you know I love magical stories. If you like, you're craving that kind of woodish mystical magical story in the woods. Woodish story in the woods has been a long day. I don't feel ill. I can't sleep all night. This is perfect for that but also if you're looking for a male male romance that is a bit different. That's me all done. Thank you so much if you have participated at all in this 24 hour readathon that I've run. It has been so much fun. Like it's been the most fun. I've had such a wonderful time interacting with everyone and seeing everyone's theories for the murder mystery has been so cool. You guys are really, you really got into it. Like you really bought into the idea of what I was trying to sell and I come in to see how you all react to who the killer is. So yeah, if you did participate, thank you. You can tell when I'm tired because my eyes go red. Like sometimes people comment, are you high? And I'm like, no, I'm just so tired. Thank you so much if you participated and even if you just watched and enjoyed this vlog, thank you so much. And yeah, I will see you very, very soon in another video. Bye.